Halle Berry covers the NY Times Magazine, and inside the magazine she talks about her upcoming role in the new film ‘Cloud Atlas’. It’s an epic new movie with six plotlines that span space and time. I’m not sure if I’m entirely sold on the movie (watch the trailer below). It looks like it could be good, but I’m leaning more towards it looking more like a hot mess. (Rotten Tomatoes has given the movie a 76%, which is a decent rating, but the movie’s not out yet, so that could change.)

Here’s some from the very long interview, via Celebitchy:

On the paparazzi
it’s not O.K. that they’re doing terrible things to my daughter. One night, after they chased us, it took me two hours just to get her calmed down enough to get to sleep.

On if Cloud Atlas is a “comeback” for her
“I never went anywhere. I just seized the chance to be in an extraordinary filmwith an extraordinary cast, exploring an idea that’s relevant to everyone.”

She’s asked ‘Why have you made such bad choices in men?’
“My picker’s broken,” she says with a laugh. “God just wanted to mix up my life. Maybe he was thinking, ‘This girl can’t get everything! I’m going to give her a broken picker.’ ” She says it’s fixed now.

Something vague about how she’s insecure
“Just because they see my face doesn’t mean they see me. A person’s self-esteem has nothing to do with how she looks. If it’s true that I’m beautiful,” she adds, “I’m proof of that.
“Self-esteem comes from who you have in your life. How you were raised. What you struggled with as a child.”

Her struggles as a mixed race child
After her mother showed up for the first time at her all-black elementary school, Berry was shunned. “Kids said I was adopted,” she says. “Overnight, I didn’t fit in anymore.” When the family moved to the suburbs in search of a better education for Berry and her sister, she was suddenly the lone black child in a nearly all-white school. People left Oreo cookies in her locker. When she was elected prom queen, the school principal accused her of stuffing the ballot box and suggested she and the white runner-up flip a coin to see who got to be queen. Berry won the toss.

On proving herself
“I always had to prove myself through my actions,” she says. “Be a cheerleader. Be class president. Be the editor of the newspaper. It gave me a way to show who I was without being angry or violent. By the time I left school, I had a lot of tenacity. I’d turned things around.”

On how her mom helped her with her identity
When she was 16, her mother stood with her in front of a mirror and asked what she saw. “My mother helped me identify myself the way the world would identify me,” Berry says. “Bloodlines didn’t matter as much as how I would be perceived” — as beautiful but also as a black woman in a world in which the images of beautiful, successful black women were notably absent.

How a black counselor became her mentor
“My mother tried hard,” Berry says. “But there was no substitute for having a black woman I could identify with, who could teach me about being black.”

A black school counselor named Yvonne Sims entered her life in fifth grade. She remains one of Berry’s closest friends. “Yvonne taught me not to let the criticism affect me. She inspired me to be the best and gave me a model of a great black woman.”

On being biracial
We speak of her own experience, but also that of President Obama. She hasn’t met him, but she attended the inauguration and feels a connection to another dark-skinned child of an absent black father, raised by a white mother. “Being biracial is sort of like being in a secret society,” she says. “Most people I know of that mix have a real ability to be in a room with anyone, black or white.”

Winning the Oscar didn’t change much for her
“I come from humble beginnings,” she says. “I always felt like the underdog. Behind the eight ball. I learned not to be too high on the hog. Even that night I won the Oscar, I had a fundamental knowing, it was just a moment in time. Driving home that night, back to my house, I felt like Cinderella. I said, ‘When this night is over, I’m going back to who I was.’ And I did.”

Why she’s trying to move to France
“I can’t grow my daughter in L.A.,” she tells me. “You take a little child who is just trying to learn about the world and have all these people with cameras chasingafter her, calling things out to her about her mother. It’s starting to make her feel special and different. I want her to feel special and different, but not for the reason of being my child.”

What she’d do if she wasn’t famous
“I’d go to the market with my daughter,” she says. “Go to Santa Monica Pier and take her on a ride. Nothing special. Just live some normal life for once.”

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Halle Berry lands the cover of November’s InStyle magazine, and she looks absolutely gorgeous! She looks stunning in a tight red cutout dress, looking hotter than ever (she just gets better with age!).

In the interview, Halle talks about her custody battle with her ex Gabriel Aubrey. She desperately wants to move her daugther Nahla to France, where her fiance Olivier Martinez lives. She claims she wants to remove Nahla from the constant presence of the paparazzi.

Here’s more via Celebitchy:

On why she wants to move to France
“It’s the appeal of privacy and a greater sense of safety for Nahla. I don’t want her to grow up around the tabloids. Because we are followed all the time, she is starting to feel like she is somehow special, and of course she is, but I want her to understand that she’s special because of who she is, not because she was born into this celebrity blender.”

On her custody battle
“There is turbulence, bit this too shall pass.”

On her wedding plans:
“I do know it will be very small. I haven’t been to many weddings, but I went to one this weekend with 250 guests. I thought, Wow – so this is a wedding, huh? I’ve never had that, nor have I wanted that. I wasn’t even trying to catch the bouquet!”

On her fiance Olivier Martinez:
“When I first met Olivier, there wasn’t the initial ‘I’m in love!’ It was something that grew more gradually—and it feels more real because of that. [Marriage] is another one of those never-say-never things. I’m a hopeless romantic, and I won’t stop till I get it right!”

“He’s silly, a clown, and very much the life of the party, which is good for someone like me. Danny Downer … been there, done that. Now I like Louie Lightfoot!”

On aging in Hollywood:
“Throughout my career I have been talked out of things I wanted to do, and when I look back I think, I should have followed my instincts. I relied on others to guide me because I thought they knew better. But as I’ve gotten older, I’ve learned to trust myself. Don’t stress about your age or fight it. Appreciate the young women who look like you once did, but don’t strive to be like them. You’re moving into a new phase of your life—embrace it. That’s what I hope to do.”

On not being defined by her hairstyle:
“I think I am at my best when my hair is short. It’s easier to take care of and more of who I am. Women are conditioned to think we need long hair. I see that happening with my daughter. She is so in love with her hair right now. She says, ‘Look, Mommy—it’s so long!” As women, we think it defines us, and we learn that at a young age.”

I think it’s a great interview, and she seems very open and honest. Whether or not she’s being entirely honest about the moving to France situation, meh…. who knows. I think she wants away from her ex more than she wants to be away for Nahla’s sake. But who knows.

The women of Revlon have never been quiet about their support of cancer-fighting causes, and now, they’re coming together for the beauty brand’s first-ever public service announcement campaign, created with the Entertainment Industry Foundation.

Halle Berry and Emma Stone star in the stark clip, which focuses on the message that “Your Lips Can Save Lives” when you talk about cancer and encourage loved ones to schedule regular medical check-ups to ensure early detection.

“We sort of did a play on how we can use our lips, while wearing lipstick, to laugh, to flirt and to spread the word about cancer, and encourage other women to do the same,” Berry says in a release.

“We can talk to the women that we love about getting screened today,” Stone adds.

Since 1990, Revlon has raised more than $75 million for cancer-fighting causes through fundraising efforts that include its annual EIF Revlon Run/Walk for Women. In addition to the PSA, out this week, the brand is also running a print campaign, which features Stone and her mother, a breast cancer survivor. Visit revloncares.com for more information, and to see how you can help.

As her third perfume with beauty giant Coty Inc., Halle Berry is launching a new signature scent called Reveal, bottling the spirit of classic glamour with a modern, seductive twist just in time for Valentine’s Day.

But, what makes this fragrance so special?

“Reveal has a perfect balance,” explains Berry. “Light and fresh, it becomes sexier and more mysterious as you wear it. The iris is a very special part of this composition. The scent of iris can be a bit dark or woody, but I decided to choose facets of it that make it feel velvety soft and airy.”

Continues Halle, “Reveal is an invitation for women to share their story, to reveal some parts of themselves that they have not yet expressed. It is a timeless fragrance that I think will make women feel beautiful and confident.”

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